Kota reliquary figure, Democratic Republic... - Lot 60 - De Baecque et Associés

Lot 60
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Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
Kota reliquary figure, Democratic Republic... - Lot 60 - De Baecque et Associés
Kota reliquary figure, Democratic Republic of Congo Wood, copper, brass H. 46 cm Provenance : Laprugne Collection Called mbulu ngulu in the language of the Southern Kota, these effigies topped basketry baskets containing relics associated with ancestor worship. They maintained a perennial link between the living and the dead. Their style, which corresponds to the so-called "classical" typology - with an oval face, a large transverse crescent-shaped headdress, truncated lateral headdresses with a rectilinear base and vertical pendants - is attributed by Chaffin (1979) and Perrois (1985) to the Obamba or Mindumu (or Ndumu) groups, located in the region of Franceville, where the "historical" specimens collected by the Savorgnan de Brazza mission in 1885 come from. The softness of the oval concave face is matched by the poetry of the tears in the effigy. In a stylistic departure from the classical treatment, the central cross that appears on the face of the "classical" Kota is here only half represented on the upper part of the face. The outline of the eyes is oval and horizontal, in relief, with small pupils represented by large iron nail heads, and by the very rare "teardrop" motifs (in reality scarifications). Triangular nose. The perfect curve of the lateral parts of the headdress, subtly taking up, in parallel, the shape of the oval of the face, decorated with a beautiful striated frieze in relief adjoining the birth of the face, as well as the top headdress decorated with a rare "diadem" highlight the remarkable depth of the face superbly balanced by the ample movement of the base ending in two cut sides. This effigy brings to light the imagination of the Kota area, also distinguishing itself by the radicality of its geometric conception reinventing the style of the "classical" canons. Their exhibition - from the 1880s at the Trocadero Ethnographic Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum of Oxford University - profoundly marked the discovery of African art in Europe and, from the early years of the 20th century, was part of the history of its reception by modern artists, as the exhibition at MoMA on Primitivism in 1984 masterfully showed. We would like to thank the firm Amrouche Expertise for its help in the drafting of this sheet.
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